Most common caliber?

[Elnathan]

How many American rifles were captured or purchased by the British during the AWI and were able to be precisely measured in modern times?

A surprising number, actually. The Schreit rifle, the John Thomas rifle (owned by George Hanger himself!), several Moravian rifles, including the Lion and Lamb rifle and at least one Oerter, a really nice "unknown" with a .45 barrel and 1.5" breech (no, not a typo!I think it is RCA 109.) that is illustrated all over the place, and an Lancaster with a .42 caliber bore by a maker whose name escapes me at the moment, plus a couple others, I think. A lot of the these rifles were repatriated when Britain went socialist after WWII and the old aristocratic estates, with their arms collections, were broken up to pay off taxes.

 

[tenngun]

I think that was why we see the ”˜smooth rifles’ or ”˜rifle mounted fusils’ was because in the era of uncorrected vision there were plenty of folk that shot as well with a smoothie as a rifle.

 

[Artificer]

How many American rifles were captured or purchased by the British during the AWI and were able to be precisely measured in modern times?

A surprising number, actually. The Schreit rifle, the John Thomas rifle (owned by George Hanger himself!), several Moravian rifles, including the Lion and Lamb rifle and at least one Oerter, a really nice "unknown" with a .45 barrel and 1.5" breech (no, not a typo!I think it is RCA 109.) that is illustrated all over the place, and an Lancaster with a .42 caliber bore by a maker whose name escapes me at the moment, plus a couple others, I think. A lot of the these rifles were repatriated when Britain went socialist after WWII and the old aristocratic estates, with their arms collections, were broken up to pay off taxes.

OK, so that sounds like maybe 10 to 15? Actually that is a good number, but there is even more historic importance about them that you touched on.

Since those rifles were probably or at least most likely War Trophies kept on the larger estates, they may have been only fired somewhat, but probably not much at all. If that theory is correct about not being fired much, we have a more accurate picture of the calibers used in the AWI at least by some. Since they probably were not fired much, or not at all, there is much more of a chance they were never "freshed out" and made into larger calibers.

Finally, that .42 cal. rifle sort of intrigues me as there was an article in either the Fox Fire Books or maybe Ned Robert's book about an Appalachian Bear Hunter called (I think) Uncle Joe. Now, he was in the percussion era, but this info could well apply to flintlock as well.

It seems Uncle Joe was actually hunting Black Bear with dogs and a surprisingly small caliber rifle of I think .38 cal. (There is NO way I would do that.) Anyway, he thought he needed a bigger gun and was thinking of going to something like a .47 to .49 caliber rifle. Well, a .42 caliber rifle came up first for a good price and he spent the rest of his Black Bear Hunting days using that rifle.

Now, while I think a .42 cal. flintlock is way too small to hunt Black Bear, it would still do well against men in the AWI.

One thing we haven't touched on though, is there is documentation where some rifle owners in the AWI had their rifles, damaged, lost or even captured by the enemy and sometimes without capturing the Rifle Owners. Then they did whatever they could to get another rifle.

On a very small number of occasions, some other rifleman had brought an extra rifle they then used/traded for/purchased. More commonly they took whatever caliber rifle was available. So perhaps some smaller caliber rifles were used that otherwise would not have been preferred to use against men?

Gus

 

[19 16 6]

Local museums would be a good starting place to get the answer.

You seem to like the idea of museums representing commonly used calibres.
Could I propose to you that museums have what was not used up.
If it was not used up & worn out was there another gun that was ?
Maybe they survived because of their small sights & another gun was used in preference.
I am saying that they may not truly represent a cross section of common.
Some of the very big collections of up to thousands of pieces may better represent this topic question.
O.

 

[smoothshooter]

That has been my thought on the one of the reasons smoothbores were so popular before prescription glasses of good quality and reasonable price were available.

 

[smoothshooter]

I believe there is pretty solid documentation that the rifle Davy Crockett used to kill over 100 black bears of all sizes in one year in west Tennessee was somewhere around .38 caliber.

 

[Artificer]

I think that was why we see the ”˜smooth rifles’ or ”˜rifle mounted fusils’ was because in the era of uncorrected vision there were plenty of folk that shot as well with a smoothie as a rifle.

While we cannot discount that some to many people did not have good enough eyes to take full advantage of a rifle, especially in the 18th century, that is really only a small part of the reason that smoothbores were so overwhelmingly used in the 18th century throughout the American Colonies and then U.S.A.

We tend to not think that most Colonists did not live on the frontier and even many of them preferred the smoothbore because you could use it like a shotgun for small game or a rifle for medium/larger game.

Further, men from the ages of 16 or 18 through 60 back in the more "settled areas" had to have a gun that would be acceptable for Militia Duty and a smoothbore was cheaper for those who might otherwise have not much use for a gun, besides small game hunting.

So if one really wishes to find the most common caliber for the 18th century, it most likely was a smoothbore and probably well into the early 19th century as well.

Gus

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Yes the idea that "why pay more if there is no advantage" is one possible factor. The trouble is with Tenngun's post, were the "rifle mounted fusils" and the "smooth rifles" that much cheaper than an actual rifle?
:hmm:

A fusil was cheaper, at least 60%, if the prices at George Morgan's store in the 1760's comparing rifles to a fusil/neat are a good sample. Was this fusil closer to a tradegun or to a smooth rifle ??? (I'm thinking they were well made tradeguns - imho).

Another factor is what was available. While PA, MD, and VA were the seats of early, British Colonial, rifle making, how many of the rifles that were sold, (let alone collected and now in museums), were ordered or bought being "just what the customer wanted", compared to "just what the customer could afford", and then coupled with "just what the guy in the shop had on hand for sale". ??

While we've seen Spence produce many references to rifled pieces being sold in the largest of towns and the cities, most of the men who formed the AWI Rifle Regiments were not from locations anywhere near these towns and cities. Did they venture far and wide to buy their rifles?

On the other hand Morgan sent all the way to Philadelphia to get his rifles to sell on the frontier...


:idunno:

LD

 

[Rifleman1776]

Local museums would be a good starting place to get the answer.

You seem to like the idea of museums representing commonly used calibres.
Could I propose to you that museums have what was not used up.
If it was not used up & worn out was there another gun that was ?
Maybe they survived because of their small sights & another gun was used in preference.
I am saying that they may not truly represent a cross section of common.
Some of the very big collections of up to thousands of pieces may better represent this topic question.
O.

Not really. The G.M. Davis museum in Claremore, Oklahoma has an interesting history. Many/most of the guns in it were well used by the original owners. The museum displays them in chronological order and gives detailed information on each one. Including caliber, twist, etc. For firearms research it is top caliber.

 

[Sparkitoff]

I have a pistol from the Ottoman Empire era that is around .70 caliber. I have a rifle that was supposed to be with Zachary Taylor's troops in South Texas. It is around .72 caliber. They are both smooth. Due to the historical significance of these, I have never shot them.
The .72 caliber musket is quite a bit larger bore than what was most commonly encountered in Texas at the time.
Pistols from the Ottoman Empire era are usually of a smaller bore diameter.
I've not answered your question directly because I have not provided info in the exact time frame you specified. My point is that it is very hard to narrow down a caliber or even a trend to a time period and geographical location outside of a few years and a specific colony or community.

 

[tenngun]

That is something of note. We base Archelogy on the idea that preservation is so rare that chances are what survives is the most avarage. Then something like the analog computer is found off of Greece that’s 2000 years old. I have no idea how to spell it, the archateri (?)mechanisms. Any way the odd ball does get preserved.
In gun preservation the plain Jane might get repurposed or just stuck in the shed till it rots away. The special piece gets preserved. Or...
Gramps uniform he fought in the war with hangs in the attic, while gramp’s work clothing, the stuff today we are really interested in, gets cut up for rags and quilts.

 

[tenngun]

That covers smoothbore in general in colonial and wary Federlist America. What we see in such American made smoothbore is that they tended to look like fusils and fowling pieces.
The smooth rifle, or rifle mounted fusil looked like any other American rifle. Rear sights, full octagon barrels, even set triggers, and the full trigger guards. These were rifles in every way except the smooth bore. Many were in small caliber typicle oj local rifles. These are the guns that I think reflect uncorrected vision. Even a 20/25 or 20/30 will not get the full advantage of a rifle but can put a ball through the chest of a deer at 70 yards with a smooth rifle.
When the US joined the First World War the men of the Lafayette escadrille were all at first refused entry in to the American air corps, most because of poor eyesight. None could pass the physical.

 

[Zonie]

I believe there is pretty solid documentation that the rifle Davy Crockett used to kill over 100 black bears of all sizes in one year in west Tennessee was somewhere around .38 caliber.

Although many seem to believe this, others think the reference to his gun being a 38 think it is very possible this is the number of balls per pound the guns bore was sized at.

Many of the old guns were described this way and modern writers, not understanding this think the number is the size of the bore in inches.

A 38 bore gun would have a actual bore size of .497 making the gun basically a .50 caliber rifle.

 

[George]

I have a 1967 book by The Kentucky Rifle Association which has pictures and specs of about 100 Kentucky rifles. I got bored one winter evening and figured the calibers of all of them, averaged the different categories.

Rifled flintlocks, 60 guns...average 46.8 cal.
Smooth flintlocks, 20 guns...average 50.95 cal.
Percussion, 23 guns, all rifled...average 43.1 cal.

Spence

 

[Artificer]

Here is a 1773 example of a rifle being made in Northampton County for a customer in Lancaster county about 90 miles/two counties away, even though a rifle probably could have been made in Lancaster at that time.
http://flintriflesmith.com/WritingandResearch/WebArticles/1773 Letter from Gunmaker.htm


A map of PA showing the modern counties to illustrate the distance between counties: http://www.pavisnet.com/pastatemap/pafrontmap.jpg

Dave, I would like to discuss more on how/where/why early rifles were distributed, but will have to wait until after the weekend.
Gus

 

[Nativearizonan]

One of the interesting things about the early rifles was the fact they were made in the whole spectrum of calibers. Here are some thoughts that may not have been considered:

Colonials were, by necessity, a frugal lot, so they wanted the gun that did the job, but gave them the most shots per pound of lead or powder. The lower limit was probably more a choice made by practicality than by anything else. The smaller the bore, the harder it is to load and the quicker the bore fowls. Larger bores are easier to load, but more expensive to shoot, so there was that trade-off without even considering killing power. A smaller bore would have been more difficult to cut riflings into, as well, so that may explain earlier rifles having larger bores.

They typically chose smaller calibers than what we consider necessary or humane for various big game today, and it really wasn't an issue until they ran into Grizzlies. A buffalo, elk, black bear, or deer, would generally just run off somewhere after being hit by a mortal shot, and they could be tracked to that point just as an archer tracks his game these days; whereas a Grizzly would probably spend it's dying moments making mincemeat out of the hapless hunter. When hunters met Grizzlies, the bore size went up.

 

[tenngun]

The big game that did run in the east was as big as it’s westren partners but the hearts were smaller. Deer was still the big game likely to be seen. So that is probable thinking. Also it was the eastren woodlands. And even the tall so-called first growth forest made it hard to get clear long shots, compared to the west with its long open spaces.
Central Europe went with big rifles when the game could be boar, an animal that’s like a griz that’s in a bad mood. Or chamois, that might be that little speck on the mountain you can just barely see. Something not seen in the eastren woods.
I wonder however, and this just speculation, if a combination of factors effected westren guns. Like easier barrel making, cheaper and more plentiful lead and powder in terms of economic cost and availability. In terms of money and time to make that money, a rifle in 1830 was cheaper then a rifle eighty years before. Likewise the stuff to feed it was cheaper.

 

[Elnathan]

They typically chose smaller calibers than what we consider necessary or humane for various big game today

That pattern tended to hold true until well into the cartridge era, BTW. A lot of the early smokeless cartridges are pretty underpowered by modern standards. Part of this may be that modern hunters tend to err towards more power to in an effort to compensate for less confidence in their shooting skills, and partly because it is easier to sell "Black Fang X-Tra-Maim" ammo than "same stuff your Grandad used" ammo.


Regarding Crockett's rifle, while I have never tried it, I do believe that killing a black bear with a small bore is fairly simple, so long as you can just walk up to it and shoot behind the ear while it is cornered by your dogs or caught in a trap.

 

[smoothshooter]

There should have been a considerable money savings by not having a barrel rifled, since that was a slow, laborous task that might have taken most, or all of a day to accomplish.
I, myself, really like how much easier it is to clean a smoothbore, especially when done under less than ideal conditions, or when optimal cleaning accessories are not available.
The normally thicker walls of a rifle-type barrel should have been better able to handle higher velocity loads when needed compared to the thinner ones fusils had, a real issue in the days when softer iron was the material all barrels were made of.

 

[nkbj]

I have a 1967 book by The Kentucky Rifle Association which has pictures and specs of about 100 Kentucky rifles. I got bored one winter evening and figured the calibers of all of them, averaged the different categories.

Rifled flintlocks, 60 guns...average 46.8 cal.
Smooth flintlocks, 20 guns...average 50.95 cal.
Percussion, 23 guns, all rifled...average 43.1 cal.

Spence

They did what worked?